Connect Slack, with your own app

Make a small private Slack app from our template, paste one token, and your assistant can search, read and post in your workspace, in chats and in scheduled jobs.

You will be able to let your assistant search, read and post in your Slack workspace, as you, with a token that is yours.

Slack connects with your own app: a small private app you make inside your own workspace, from a template we give you, in about five minutes. You paste the token it gives you, and your mineral checks it works before it keeps it.

Once it is connected, your assistant can search messages and files, read channels, threads and direct messages, look people up, read and write canvases, and post. It does all of that as you: it sees what you can see, and nothing more. It works in your chats and in your scheduled jobs.

Why your own app#

Slack lets an assistant like yours in through an app that lives in your workspace. We could have published one shared Crads AI app, but then every member's Slack would pass through something we own. Your own app keeps us out of the path: the token is made by you, stored on your mineral only, and works nowhere but your workspace. You can switch it off in Slack whenever you like.

Keep the app private. Slack only lets this kind of connection in from apps that stay inside one workspace (or are published in its Marketplace), so an app you share with other workspaces stops working.

Before you start#

You need to be signed in to Slack in your browser, in the workspace you want to connect. If your workspace only lets admins add apps, you will need your admin to approve it in step 2; Slack sends them the request for you.

In the Crads AI app, open Your assistant, then Connections. Under Add a connection, find Slack and press Set up. A card opens with three steps. It stays open while you go back and forth to Slack.

Step 1. Make your app#

1. Press Create the app in Slack. Slack opens with our template already filled in.
2. Pick your workspace and press Next.
3. Slack shows a summary of what the app can do. Press Create.

If Slack opens an empty form instead of the template, choose From a manifest, pick your workspace, choose the JSON tab, and paste the template. The Copy the template button on the card puts it on your clipboard, and here it is in full:

{
  "display_information": {
    "name": "Crads assistant",
    "description": "My assistant, acting as me in this workspace."
  },
  "features": {
    "bot_user": { "display_name": "crads-assistant", "always_online": false }
  },
  "oauth_config": {
    "scopes": {
      "user": [
        "search:read.public", "search:read.private", "search:read.mpim", "search:read.im",
        "search:read.files", "search:read.users", "files:read",
        "channels:history", "groups:history", "mpim:history", "im:history",
        "channels:read", "groups:read", "im:read", "mpim:read",
        "chat:write", "canvases:read", "canvases:write", "users:read", "users:read.email"
      ]
    }
  },
  "settings": {
    "is_mcp_enabled": true,
    "org_deploy_enabled": false,
    "socket_mode_enabled": false,
    "token_rotation_enabled": false
  }
}

Three things in it matter:

• The scopes are user scopes. The token acts as you, so your assistant can reach exactly what your own Slack account can, and no more.
• is_mcp_enabled is on. That is the switch Slack checks before it lets an assistant in. An app made by hand needs it turned on in the app's settings, on the page Slack calls Agents & AI Apps (some of Slack's own pages just say Agents).
• Token rotation is off. With it on, the token you paste would expire twelve hours later. Slack does not let you turn rotation off again once it is on, so if you made an app with it on, make a fresh one from the template.

The app also has a bot user, named crads-assistant because Slack only allows lowercase letters, numbers, dashes, dots and underscores in a bot's name. It never posts; it is there because Slack's sign-in has been known to refuse an app without one.

If Slack says "We can't translate a manifest with errors", you have an older copy of the template: change the bot's display_name to crads-assistant and press Next.

Step 2. Install it and copy the token#

1. In your new app's settings, open OAuth & Permissions.
2. Press the install button for your workspace, then Allow.
3. The same page now shows a User OAuth Token, starting xoxp-. Copy it.

Copy the User token, not the Bot token underneath it (that one starts xoxb-, and the card refuses it with a note saying so).

If your workspace needs an admin to approve apps, Slack says so at the install step and sends them the request. Come back to this step once they have.

Step 3. Paste the token#

Paste the token into the card and press Connect Slack. Your mineral saves it, then asks Slack for the list of things your assistant can do there. When Slack answers, the card says how many tools it found, and Slack appears in Your connections with the status "working, including in scheduled jobs".

If Slack does not answer properly, the card says why in plain words, and nothing is kept: the token is removed from your mineral straight away, so you can fix the problem and press Connect again.

What your assistant does with it#

It acts as you. It can post as you, so if you would rather see a draft before anything goes out, tell it so once ("always show me a Slack message before you send it") and it will remember. Slack limits how fast any one app can search and post, so a job that wants to send hundreds of messages a minute will be slowed down by Slack, not by us.

Disconnecting#

Press Disconnect on the Slack row in Your connections. That deletes the token from your mineral. The app itself still exists in your workspace: to switch it off at Slack's end too, open the app's settings on api.slack.com and remove it from your workspace, or delete the app.